Existing wall outlets generally are devices that provide power to electronic devices via a power socket. In the United States, standard wall outlets generally provide power via a two-pronged socket with an optional grounding element. With the proliferation of modern devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, media players and the like, the standard wall outlet has lost some of its utility as these devices are often charged via connection to a universal serial bus (USB) port.
The universal serial bus (USB) is a transmission standard developed in the early nineties which supports plug-and-play as well as hot-plugging. The USB enables higher transmission speeds than other buses and it allows for unplugging of a device without the need for executing complicated applications. For these reasons the USB standard has become a popular connection modality for supplying data and power connections between devices. Most computer peripherals and smart devices such as printers, hard drives, mice, keyboards and the like use a USB connector to connect with a computer. The USB provides a uniform connector for various peripherals, including power supply interfaces, communication interfaces, video output devices, audio input devices, data storage devices and the like. Because of the proliferation of devices that rely on USB connections to provide power, the limited USB ports provided on computers are often insufficient to provide adequate connections to meet users' needs.
The proliferation and ubiquity of internet ready devices has given rise to a variety of wireless data transmission modalities. WiFi is a technology that allows an electronic device to exchange data or connect to the internet wirelessly using, for example, 2.4 GHz UHF and 5 GHz SHF radio waves. “WiFi” is a trade named that is generally defined as any wireless local area network (“WLAN”) products that are based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. Because most WLANs are based on these standards, the term WiFi is generally used as a synonym for WLAN. Other wireless data transmission modalities rely on cellular networks such as 1g, 2g, 3g, 4g, 5g, (collectively “nG”), LTE, and WiMax to provide internet connections to wireless devices.
In addition to wireless data transmission, wired data transmission also plays an important role in providing internet connectivity to devices. Ethernet is the family of computer networking technology for local area networks (“LAN”). Systems communicating over Ethernet divide a stream of data into shorter pieces called “frames”. Each frame contains source and destination addresses and error checking data so that transmitted data maintains its integrity.
Because many modern electronic devices require both power and an internet connection to function properly there is a need in the art for an inclusive device that will provide a power source as well as a connection to the internet.